“A gale has risen and is sweeping the clouds across the sky.” Inspired by this famous verse in an ancient Chinese poem, the design team has presented a “pavilion of swirling clouds” for the garden festival of BJFU.

Covering an area of 120 square meters, the pavilion will serve as a hub for information during the festival, and turn into a place for recreation and gathering after the event. Bordering a campus road, the site of the pavilion is a central square surrounded by woods, bushes, memorial stone carvings and benches.

The design approach has taken full advantage of bamboo’s features, especially its malleability and bending resistance. Accordingly, a curved form was created for the pavilion, fitting into the campus’s context and the atmosphere of the garden festival

The positions of curved openings on the pavilion were determined by the flow of people and the distribution of trees, bushes and stones on the site, so that people can easily walk across the square through the pavilion.

The pavilion stretches over the bushes in a light and graceful way. The top of the pavilion narrowed into a round skylight, merging the building with wind, sunlight and green plants, while presenting an image of swirling clouds.

With the help of the long-standing processing techniques of natural bamboo, the size, shape, structural from and details were confirmed through close collaboration of the architects, structural engineers and bamboo contractors.

Modern building techniques, digital design technology and bamboo construction were integrated through pre-fabrication. Digitalization was applied throughout the whole building process from conceptual design to completion.

Building parts produced with the aid of digital technology enhanced the pavilion’s compliance to its load, as well as the feasibility of construction. For the detailed design, a certain level of error tolerance allows for on-site adjustment with bamboo splits and tiles, in which way the handicraft features of the pavilion can be observed.

The significance of the project is more than the creation of a bamboo “cloud”. Through close collaboration, the architects and the bamboo contractors have discovered a practical prototype that can adapt to various site conditions and functions thanks to the great flexibility of bamboo design.

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